History of 2874

Our loco history really starts with George Jackson Churchward and the striking developments in locomotive design which took place during his tenure as chief mechanical engineer of the Great Western Railway.

Mr Churchward was born at Stoke Gabriel in Devon in 1857. He started his career by being articled as a pupil to the locomotive superintendent of the South Devon and Cornwall Railway.

This environment perhaps played a part in his later design work. The beauty of the Devon countryside may have influenced his artistic work on the external appearance of his engines.

An awareness of the diverse requirements of locomotives negotiating the heavy gradients in South Devon and Cornwall as well as the need for high speed elsewhere would have been essential in these early years and perhaps sowed the seeds that later grew into the range of locos that served the GWR so well for many years.

In 1876, his employer was absorbed into the Great Western Railway and Mr Churchward transferred to Swindon where he worked in the drawing office until 1882.

 He then became became assistant manager of the carriage works, moving to the locomotive works in 1895

with promotion to manager in 1896.

In 1897 he also took on the additional role of chief assistant locomotive superintendent.

During these years there is no doubt that he was busy in the initial stages of the developments that were to be so important.

He took over from William Dean as Chief Mechanical Engineer in 1902, though that title only came into being in 1916 (as Mr Dean had been in failing health for some years it is clear Mr Churchward's influence and workload was fast expanding).

Mr Churchward's great concept was for “Standard Locomotives” – the basis was a drawing dated January 1901 which outlined six projected engines sharing many common components. Included in the range was a 2-8-0, the first British design with that wheel configuration - this became the 28xx class.

The prototype came out of the Swindon works in June 1903 and was originally No. 97 – later being numbered 2800.

The loco was a success from the start and over a period lasting until the 1940s a total of 167 engines of the class were built and though the later locomotives incorporated some modifications by Collett they were substantially Churchward’s design.

Many of the class were still running into the 1960s hauling goods trains around the country right until the withdrawal of steam from the main line.

Today, a number of these rugged, powerful and reliable locos still do sterling service on Heritage lines around the country – a real testament to Mr Churchward’s imagination and design.

Grateful thanks are due to Richard Derry and Dave Walker for information and copies of GWR records that have made this history possible. We would be delighted to receive any further information and/or photographs of the loco either in its working life, in Barry or since.  Of course, we would be very happy to receive any corrections or additions to our information.

2874 was built in Swindon to Churchward’s design and was part of a batch of 28 to Lot 210, Diagram I and had Works Orders of 2762 – 2789 respectively. Work started in 1918 and was completed at the end of November. The recorded cost to build was £4992 and when the tender was included £6193, at today's prices this would represent £286,000 for the loco and £355,000 with tender. Of course, today we do not have the benefit of the economies of scale and a massive works (and workforce) able to undertake every task on site and so it will cost far more to restore than to originally build.

The loco was rated 8F with a tractive effort of 35,380 lbs and weighed out at 92 tons 12cwt with its tender.

Coming into traffic on 4^th December 1918 it was just too late to help with the major war effort where it’s class colleagues provided valuable assistance to the Royal Navy in hauling coal from the Welsh coalfields to numerous ports in the Western region and up into Lancashire for onward movement to Scapa Flow – the so-called “Jellicoe Specials”.

The first shed was Old Oak Common where it worked turn and turn about on the coal trains from Wales to London –

later homes included Reading, Leamington, Tyseley, Neath, Cardiff, Banbury, Stourbridge, Newport , Aberdare

and its final one again at Neath.

There is a lovely photo at Warwickshire Railways website of her standing at Tyseley on Sunday 21^st June 1931. The loco was condemned on 24^th May 1963 and sold to Woodham Bros on 9^th October that year. As was usual with the GWR, the boiler that is now on 2874 (Standard No 1 – 2961) saw service on numerous other locos including Halls (Olton, Broome, Trentham and Butlers) and Granges (Arlington and Haughton) and covered some 1,007,205 miles – if only we could do the renovation of the boiler for what it cost new £971 (£56,000 at today's prices) we would be very pleased!

We have had sight of the engine record card from the National Archives at Kew and these confirm that the loco covered 1,255,231 miles in service.

We would be delighted to publish any photos of the loco in GWR or BR service.

Of great interest is the cost of maintenance shown in the records – in the 1930s a heavy general cost between £450 (£32,000)and £700 (£50,000) and a boiler overhaul between £150 and £700 – if only those prices were available from Swindon today our task would be much easier.

Of course, what make this 2-8-0 different from the rest of the class in preservation is that it is likely to be the only one to ever run again with the original internal steam pipes – although the class was designed in this way the vast majority were later converted to external pipes and all of the 38xx class were built to the latter, external pattern.

The Boiler

Boilers that have been on Loco No. 2874

The usual practice of the Great Western Railway when overhauling locomotives was to swap a boiler to speed up the turn-round in the works - the old boiler would then take its turn in the boiler shop and be ready for fitting to the next loco in the overhaul queue.  Though the listing below shows that a swap was not always the case.  The "standardisation" of boilers, and swapping meant that a boiler would be used on numerous locos and across a number of classes.  The boiler that "started out" on 2874 was numbered 2805.

Subsequent boilers were:

History of Boiler No. 2961

When 2874 was withdrawn from service in 1963, the boiler carried was number 2961 - this is its history.  With grateful thanks to Craig Astell who provided much of the information.

The image shows the boiler being worked on in 2017, it is being needle gunned to remove the ravages of years of neglect and rust so that it can be fully appraised and non-destructive testing applied to check the integrity of the metal.  A process that was repeated in 2025 when we started work in earnest on the boiler overhaul.

Our first confirmed record of the boiler is from August 1923 when it was fitted to "Saint" class loco Lady of Lynn (No. 2906).  It covered 94,086 miles before removal in June 1925.  This accords with the recorded new build dates for the 29xx series boilers though there is a record of a boiler with this number being fitted to "Saint" class, Red Gauntlet (2983) between 1915 and 1920, then to "Saint" class,

Lady of Provence (2909) between July 1921 and March 1923.  We will try to resolve the conflicting information but the records are not always easy to find or sometimes read!

November 1925 saw it on heavy freight 2872 (sister of our own 2874).  This loco carried it until November 1927, clocking up 42,731 miles.

In May 1928 the boiler was fitted to "Star" class loco  Japanese Monarch (4026) though  this loco became "un-named" in the 1940s for obvious reasons. It stayed with this loco until October 1929, covering 74,985 miles.

Detail records are missing until October 1933 when it is shown as fitted to "Star" class Tintern Abbey (4067) until May 1936 with a mileage of 145,772. 

March 1937 sees a pairing with "Hall" class Olton Hall (5972) through to January 1944 with mileage recorded 323,636 - there is likely to have been a major overhaul of both loco and boiler in the interim.

Again we have a gap in records until July 1948 when Trentham Hall (5915) became the owner - a mileage of 98,160 was recorded by October 1950.

Another "Hall", this time Butlers Hall (6902) was the next in line -  34,956 miles covered by December 1951.

We now see yet another class - "Grange" - carrying the boiler with fitment to Arlington Grange (6800) between March 1952 and January 1957 - 214,369 miles; then Haughton Grange (6874) between April 1957 and December 1959 - 106,971 miles.

And so we come to April 1960 and the last recipient - our own 2874 - with 84,775 miles covered before the final fire in May 1963.  We did find the remains of that fire still in the ash pan when we came to start the dismantling in 2016!

Tenders

Tenders that have been used with loco 2874

It was not uncommon for the Great Western Railway to swap tenders when a loco came into the works for major attention - the tender would often be available for further service sooner than the loco and could be reused.  

Though the listing below shows that one tender (number 1718) was with loco 2874 for 11years during which time the loco went through three general overhauls - so there was obviously no hard and fast rule.

The favoured tender for the heavy freight class was a Churchward 3,500 gallon model - 2874 had a total of 12 of this type coupled over her 45 year working life.

A new tender, number 2111 was coupled to the loco in November 1918  - subsequent changes were: